


Between Discovery and Death

by watcherofworlds



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s01e14 The Odyssey, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: When Felicity discovers that Oliver Queen is the Starling City vigilante, she isn't exactly surprised. Panicked, yes, terrified, because he's bleeding out in the backseat of her car, but not surprised. She embarks on a mission to save his life, and what follows is probably the most harrowing night of hers.





	Between Discovery and Death

**Author's Note:**

> A missing scene fic for 1x14, covering the period between when Felicity leaves QC with Oliver bleeding in the backseat of her car and when she arrives at the Foundry asking Dig for his help.

Felicity walked quickly through the parking garage, her footsteps echoing loudly in the cavernous space. It always seemed a little spookier at night. She reached her car and climbed inside, setting her purse next to her in the passenger seat. She started the car, and as the engine rumbled to life, someone groaned and shifted in the backseat. She gasped in surprise and fear and jerked backwards.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Felicity,” the hooded figure said in a strained voice.

“How do you know my name?” Felicity asked, fear edging its way into her voice.

“Because you know my name,” the hooded figure replied. He pushed back his hood and lifted his head. All Felicity could do was stare.

“Mr- Oliver,” she said. “Oh,  _ wow _ , everything about you just became so unbelievably clear.” Oliver mustered up the energy from somewhere to stare askance at her, his rapid breathing unnaturally loud in the cramped interior of her car.

“You’re bleeding!” she cried suddenly, noticing the spot of bright red spreading against the green of his clothes.

“I don’t need to be told that,” Oliver said. Felicity wasn’t sure how he managed to be sarcastic when he was obviously gravely injured.

“You need a hospital,” she said, turning to face forward in her seat.

“My...my father’s old factory, in the Glades,” Oliver replied haltingly before she could, his words interrupted by pants for breath.

“No, you-you need a doctor, not a steel worker,” Felicity stammered.

“Felicity, you have to promise me that you’re going to take me to my father’s factory and nowhere else,” Oliver said. The desperation in his voice and in his eyes when they locked with hers drove any thought of the hospital from her mind.

“Promise,” she said in a small voice. Oliver slumped back against the seat in what might have been relief, had it not been clear that he simply didn’t have the energy to hold himself up anymore.

“Something tells me that bloodstains are  _ not _ covered under my lease,” Felicity muttered to herself as she backed out of the parking space. It took an enormous effort of will to not let her fear and panic influence how fast she drove. There’d be too much explaining to do if she got pulled over.

As Felicity made her way to Robert Queen’s old factory, she kept catching glimpses in her rearview mirror of Oliver fighting unconsciousness, shaking himself awake every time his eyes started to drift closed. She knew, somehow, that if he passed out it would be  _ very _ bad. She wasn’t sure if she was strong enough to carry him.

_ Keep him talking _ , a voice whispered in the back of her mind.  _ Whatever else you do, just keep him talking. _

“So, what I am supposed to do when we get where we’re going?” she asked, maybe a little louder than necessary, but she was nervous. 

“I...built a basement in the Foundry before I started converting it into a nightclub,” Oliver managed to tell her. “My body- associate, John Diggle, should still be there. He’ll know what to do.” Felicity vaguely recalled the person Oliver had mentioned, following behind him just about every time she’d seen him at QC like a burly, stone-faced shadow.

“The nightclub...it’s just a cover for what you’re really doing down there, isn’t it?” she asked, thinking out loud. Her question was met with silence.

“Oliver?” she asked, a quaver in her voice.

“Yes,” Oliver replied. “I needed a reason to be out in the Glades at night that no one would question.”

“I’m assuming getting into that basement won’t be as straightforward as you made it sound,” Felicity said. It wasn’t a question. In her rearview, she saw Oliver shake his head.

“There’s a keypad lock on the door,” he said. “The code’s 4587. You’ll need that to get in. And make...make sure that you park in the alleyway next to the building so that your car won’t be seen from the street.” He fell silent again after that. Felicity had to admit that it was pretty impressive that he could still think this all through so carefully when he was slowly bleeding to death and obviously in a lot of pain.

“Oliver?” she asked after a moment.

“What?” he replied after an excruciatingly long minute.

“Just...promise me you won’t pass out on me, okay?”

“I shouldn’t make a promise that I can’t keep.”

“Oliver, we’re here,” Felicity announced when she pulled into the alleyway next to the Foundry, like he’d told her to. Silence.

“Oliver?” she asked. Still no response. She twisted around in her seat to look at him. He was lying prone in the backseat, eyes closed.

“Frack!” Felicity shouted, smacking the top of her steering wheel. She twisted around in her seat again, just to make sure that Oliver was still breathing. He was. Thank God.

“Okay, Felicity,” she told herself. “Now is  _ not  _ the time to freak out. Now is the time to act.” She ran around to Oliver’s side of the car and yanked the door open.

“Oliver!” she cried, shaking his shoulder, more out of desperation than anything else. Oliver was unconscious, not asleep. She knew the difference. “Oliver!” Nothing more than a brief instant passed before she thought,  _ Time to switch to Plan B. _

Climbing halfway into the backseat, she maneuvered herself awkwardly around Oliver’s unmoving form until she managed to get her arms around him. Then she leaned back, trying to pull him up off the seat enough to get him out of the car. She managed a few inches, but Oliver was at least a hundred pounds heavier than her, and at that moment he was essentially deadweight. Even as she managed to hold him up those few inches, she could feel his mass pulling itself downward, and it was only a second before he slipped out of her grip.

Shaking her head, Felicity climbed the rest of the way into the car, planted her feet against the floor, wrapped her arms around Oliver’s chest, and  _ pulled _ . It was simple physics- more leverage, more momentum, made heavy loads easier to move. But apparently simple physics wasn’t as simple as she’d thought, because all she succeeded in doing was leaning so far backward that she overbalanced and fell, landing on her back on the seat hard enough to knock the wind out of her and pulling Oliver down with her.

“Damn it!” she shouted, shoving ineffectually against Oliver’s shoulder, trying to push him off of her.

_ God, this would be really embarrassing if he were conscious,  _ she thought unhelpfully. Her brain was going into full panic mode, and the unhelpful thoughts were the only ones that came into her head. 

Wriggling and thrashing, Felicity attempted to extricate herself from underneath Oliver, getting basically nowhere. God  _ damn _ it, why did he have to be so heavy? A whimper of desperation clawed its way out of her. Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision. Finally, after several more minutes of wiggling and shoving, she managed to get out of the car, falling hard onto her hands and knees on the ground. She got to her feet, wincing as she brushed the grit from her hands. 

Knowing that she couldn’t waste another second, Felicity ran into the Foundry, her head down in case anyone saw her, muttering the code for the basement door to herself as she went. When she reached the reached the basement door, she punched the code in so quickly that she barely saw the numbers on the keypad and hurtled down the stairs. She could hear the sound of a news broadcast as she reached the bottom.

“Excuse me!” she called out, rounding a corner and finding herself staring down the barrel of a gun. Behind it, John Diggle looked just as panicked as she felt.

“Can you help me?” Felicity asked as Diggle lowered his gun. “He’s  _ really _ heavy.” Her voice trembled. Diggle’s eyes widened, and he followed after her as she ran back the way she’d come, quickly overtaking her on the stairs. 

“Shit,” Diggle muttered when they reached Felicity’s car and he saw Oliver lying in the backseat, unconscious and bleeding. His blood was smeared on the back of the seat where he’d been slumped against it, and Felicity felt her stomach twist when she realized that she’d gotten it on herself as well. 

Diggle grabbed Oliver under his arms and dragged him backwards out of the car, accomplishing with little effort what Felicity had struggled to even come close to managing.

“Grab his feet,” he said, his voice low and commanding and laced with tension. Felicity did as he said, staggering a bit under even that little of Oliver’s weight before she found her footing. 

She helped Diggle carry Oliver into the Foundry and down into the basement, where they laid him down on a rolling table and Diggle got to work, stripping off his jacket with quick, nervous fingers and pressing a cloth against the wound on his neck- a bullet wound, Felicity could see now that it was in full view. A trickle of blood dripped down the side of Oliver’s neck and pooled on the surface of the table beneath him. Felicity felt her stomach twist again. She moved to stand next to Diggle when he beckoned her urgently over, her legs feeling shaky.

“Something tell me we have a lot of work to do,” she mumbled to herself in a small, fearful voice.


End file.
